I am 30-year-old civil engineer and along with my wife, an elementary school teacher, have enjoyed reading and discussing Financial Samurai since 2015. May we offer our thanks to Sam for providing insightful content and to all of those who have offered their feedback.

After entering the workforce during the recession, finishing our student loans in 2014 and then taking on a mortgage considerably below our earnings, we’ve been happily working toward FI ever since. We enjoy saving for a fully self-funded retirement by living simply and savings like it’s 1930.

Our 401(k) and 529 accounts have enjoyed the recent stock gains and even more recent corrections. We continue to diversify into municipals, real estate, private stocks and CDs.

We’re expecting and expecting a wild ride from most sectors going forward into 2020 and beyond.

Just started reading Financial Samurai last year.I'm just an engineer so don't have background or experience in financeNot planning to reach FIRE but interested in FI.Excited to learn more and contribute to this forum.

I'm a married, father of three (17, 16, 14) in his late 40's. I'm a rural hospital executive with a passion for personal finance and investing. I spend a fair amount of my free time reading blogs like Financial Samurai. Thanks Sam!

I am an ex-silicon valley engineer turned location-independent online business owner. Been on the road since 2013 (same year as I started reading Financial Samurai) but been living pretty much permanently in Vietnam since 2016. In addition to my online income I also have investments in physical real estate, real estate crowdsourcing (RS & Fundrise), stocks, bonds, crypto and p2p lending (Prosper & LendingClub).

I'm in my mid 30s, married, and we're expecting a baby boy later this year. My spouse and I have been reading the blog for the last couple of years and we're huge fans!

I earned an undergraduate degree from MIT (finance and economics) and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Spent the first part of my career managing money for institutions (started at a hedge fund, then worked at PIMCO helping manage fixed income and derivative portfolios for corporations). Moved over to the transactional side of finance, and spent time in investment banking at Credit Suisse and in middle market private equity as well.

In 2016, I founded a small VC backed startup focused on wealth management, which was acquired in early 2018. A few months prior to my startup getting acquired, the biotech firm my wife worked at got acquired as well. We did zero tax planning prior and at the time had a relatively limited understanding of how RSUs and ISOs work. While it was a certainly a blessing, the lack of planning and knowledge resulted in a painful surprise tax bill (in addition to the taxes we had already paid) during tax season.

Nowadays I'm a private banker and money manager and I work with individuals and endowments and foundations. I've held a variety of finance and entrepreneurship roles, but by far my favorite part is my current job where I get to work with families and individuals to help folks make sense of their finances. Excited to be here!

Found Sam's blog when I was in HS a decade ago, read it a couple of times. Went to college but had trouble finding a job after the recession. Didn't want to pay attention to my student loans, figured if I ignore the calls I wouldn't know how serious the problem was. So I defaulted. 19K grew to 25K. Found a job but disliked office politics and the environment wasn't for me. So now I'm an oilfield worker fracing wells. Better work schedule, higher pay (2.5x), best medical care, and I'm good at what I do so I get offers all the time. So I'm starting a bit late but better than never. My first out of college job paid well but no way could I FIRE on 50k/yr, so I didn't care much about FIRE. Now that I'm making more, my desire to FIRE has grown exponentially. Well that and working as a part time PA for a guy who had FIRE at 33 owning a bunch of pot farms. All he did was work out, go on dates, and invest his money in businesses to help them grow. Literally, that's all he did while having 2MM in cash on his bed chest.

Age: Mid 20s.Location: Texas (or anywhere you can frac) but call Dallas/Houston home.Goal: Do whatever the F I want and not have to worry about it. Ideally I'd want a centrally located home and just wake up, work out, volunteer at a dog shelter, and take part in hobbies every day. Another goal is to not swing a hammer into my 30s.

P.S - Decided to rehab my loans last year, and brought 25 to 17K so far. My goal is to finish paying them off in 12 months (May)!